Thing is, you ONLY 'play to your crowd', you never grow the brand.

What astonishes me is the resistance to expanding into a market that certainly doesn't LOSE money for Korg and Ketron, and certainly makes money for Yamaha (if I hear that lame excuse that a DGX is a piano with an arranger tacked on one more time, all the while ignoring it is functionally identical to any other 76 or 88 arranger with a piano sound on board, I'm going to to lose it!)...

Once you see the fallacy in the excuses, you are simply left with an unresponsive, timid corporation, too scared to try to open up possibilities for many musicians that HAVE to go elsewhere, right now. And, behind the excusism lies an undeniable fact... adding a 76 to the Tyros and PSR lines is not going to HURT their current customer base. No-one is suggesting that Yamaha STOP making what is already successful for them. The resistance to this idea seems steeped in fear and mistrust, as if ADDING to their diversity would somehow HARM Yamaha. No-one wants that, me included.

No-one has yet, to my satisfaction, PROVED that adding a 76 to the Tyros and PSR lines would lose Yamaha money. And, if it doesn't do that, what possible harm could come from making it? Only their competitors should fear this happening, but right now, they get a free pass and unfettered access to a market that scavenges Yamaha's own sales... After all, should any PSR of Tyros player decide they want a larger keyboard size, they have no CHOICE but to migrate to another manufacturer. There's enough demand for these things that Yamaha make several already (but refuse to acknowledge that they ARE arrangers, as if putting the word 'Piano' on them makes them so!), but anyone wanting to go to a larger Yamaha keyboard from a Tyros or PSR has to make a HUGE backward step in sound and capability.

So they move over to Korg or Ketron (or pick up a good used G70) and Yamaha loses out COMPLETELY.

When such a gaping hole exists in Yamaha's product lineup that other companies exploit and remain profitable, I'm afraid no-one can persuade me that Yamaha are making the right decision. And, once again, I reiterate that, should Yamaha ever correct this mistake, those now baying loudest that NOT making them is EXACTLY the right thing for Yamaha to do will be baying as loudly that they are the greatest thing since sliced bread, and OF COURSE Yamaha should make them!

And if that isn't dog-like devotion, I don't know what is...

[This message has been edited by Diki (edited 09-23-2010).]